Breeding cattle

[Slugs11]

Hi Looking for some advice on breeding cattle. Our heifer has had her first calf and it is now 7 weeks old. I understand normal beef herds produce a calf approx every 12months (Spring time in UK). The question is, will she come into heat (estrus) while the calf is still suckling from her ?. I have seen beef herds in UK with the calf's suckling with the cows for most of the summer, and seen the them with bull in the same field. At present our heifer and her calf are in the pen next to our bull, with the thought if she come into heat then he will let us know.

Appreciate any advice or thoughts.

[kickstart]

Hi Sugs

They are a few ifs and buts to this , one is the diet of the heifer, and two is the breed .

If she is getting fed properly ,that is some form of concentrate ,or /and some good quality grass , plus some minerals , not grass cut from the hedge bottom ,if she is ,she should come on heat about 4 months after she has calved .

But if she is only getting rice straw, no minerals rough cut grass she will not come on heat.

When a cow calves she will lose body weight ,and condition ,they all do , if she is being fed well it will compensate for the weight lose , if she is not being fed well weight loss and low body score ,she will not come on heat ,also being a heifer she will need some good quality feed to help her grow ,as she will be only 60% of her adult weight .

So if she is on a poor diet ,she will be thin and have small non functioning ovaries ,and will not come no heat .

Also here in Thailand breed plays a part she has long ears ,they is some Indo Brazil blood in her ,they are an intensive breed and need feeding the whole time ,they will not do ,on a diet of rice straw and poor grass and she will not come on heat , if she is a Thai native ,or a Thai Native cross Brahman ,they can handle a poor diet, and have a much better conception rate

Some say a calf suckling a beef cow, the calf acts like a contraceptive and the cow will come on heat until the cows body /bony condition allows her ,it is all down to diet .

You can not compare the uk with Thailand the uk beef cattle graze good quality fertilized grassland ,and cows will come on heat and get in calf .

My next door neighbour has a few beef cattle grazing mainly rice paddies and roadside verges he is lucky if he gets one calf every 18 -20 months ,all due to diet .

Your bull will let you know when the cow come on heat ,I hope your shed can hold him back if he tries to get at the cow .

[Slugs11]

Hi Kickstart.

Appreciate the reply and the advice.

The breed of cattle are Braford, we have 2 heifers and 1 bull. Both heifers have calved, one calf is 7 weeks old and other is 2 weeks.

We feed them on fresh Mulato grass, silage Napier grass and concentrate nuts. They have access to salt/mineral blocks. They also have rice straw available most of the day.

They both look in very good condition, compared to a few of our neigbour cows with calves. Plus considering how quickly the calves are growing, I am surprised they look so well.

One further question, What is a good age to wean a calf from its mother ?

The cow shed is constructed with 5" steel posts and 4" x 2" steel rails, so should be strong enough to hold him. We have a couple of Black Angus cross heifers, so penned them next to the bull, he soon let us know when one came into heat, so able to AI her. Guess its a bit of a tease for him, but we use him on the Braford. Was thinking of using him on the other Angus and the Charolais heifer we have ?. Plus a few of the lady cows in the village get to visit him :-)

The picture is not great, the last heifer to calf, its now 2 weeks old.

[kickstart]

Hi

I remember now you posted photograph's before the 2 heifers calved , on that diet you should not have any problems.

At what age to wean the calves ? .Our cattle are a mix of Thai native cross, Brahman and 2 dairy cross Brahman cows , the Thai native calves seem to wean themselves off ,or the mothers have had a enough of the calves and they wean the calves off , chasse the calves away when there come to suckle,they do that for a while and the calves then give up , the calves seem to be about 8-9 months old ,which you could say is a good age to wean a calf

One of our dairy cross Brahman cows ,has an Angus calf on her ,we got her back in calf about 2 months after she calved ,she due to calve again on 18th August.

a cow needs at least 2 months dry period before she calves again , a rest time , up to 2 weeks ago her calf was still suckling her ,so we had to resort to using a anite-suckling plate on her , a plate that fits into the calf's nose , and prevents the calf from suckling the mother , it is working, been in 2 weeks now ,will take it out in a few days.

We had the same problem with the cows calf from last year , but the antie -sucking plate did not work the calf keep suckling the cow ,and we could not wean the calf off , so we sold her ,she was a head banger , difficult to handle at the best of time ,then we went out and bought a new washing machine.